A booming deer population in Montgomery County has some residents frustrated by the lack of legal methods to eliminate what some people consider a nuisance and safety hazard.
The obvious solution is a lengthening of the hunting season, said Montgomery County Civic Federation President Peggy Dennis. The group also wants to loosen state laws prohibiting residents from shooting deer within 150 yards of an occupied building without the permission of all surrounding neighbors.
“I don’t understand why we have a closed season on hunting what amount to large rats,” Dennis recently told members of the County Council.
In the winter, Dennis — who is being treated for Lyme disease for the second time — said she sees deer plow through her electric fence in search of food.
The county’s overgrown deer population is damaging the ecosystem, to the point where only the plants that deer won’t eat survive, said Audubon Naturalist Society Deputy Director Lisa Alexander. And the county averages roughly 2,000 reports to police of vehicle collisions with deer.
The county’s Department of Parks is expanding efforts to keep deer populations down by bringing in sharpshooters to hunt at night while parks are closed and organizing hunts with local residents, said Rob Gibbs, head of the department’s Natural Resources Stewardship Section. The most recent effort began a few weeks ago in Sligo Creek, when county sharpshooters killed 25 deer. Countywide, about 6,000 deer were harvested in the 2010-2011 hunting season.
But in national parks like the C&O Canal, years of observing deer and vegetation are required, as are studies on the effects of killing deer, before action can be taken, said C&O Canal Deputy Superintendent Brian Carlstrom. These studies have cost the National Park Service as much as $500,000 nationwide, he said.
The best solution may be to educate residents in ways of living alongside the deer population, said John Hadidian, a senior scientist with the Humane Society of the United States. “We need to look at our attitudes toward deer and understand that they’re a permanent part of our landscape.”
